Solemn and strange music; and PROSPERO above, invisible. Enter several strange Shapes, bringing in a banquet; they dance about it with gentle actions of salutation; and, inviting the KING, &c., to eat, they depart.

ALON. What harmony is this? my good friends, hark!

GON. Marvellous sweet music!

ALON. Give us kind keepers, heavens! What were these?
SEB. A living drollery. Now I will believe.

That there are unicorns; that in Arabia

There is one tree, the phoenix' throne; one phoenix

At this hour reigning there.

ANT.

I'll believe both;

And what does else want credit, come to me,

And I'll be sworn 't is true: travellers ne'er did lie,
Though fools at home condemn 'em.

GON.

If in Naples

I should report this now, would they believe me?
If I should say, I saw such islanders,-*

For, certes, these are people of the island,

Who, though they are of monstrous shape, yet, note,
Their manners are more gentle-kind, than of

Our human generation you shall find

Many, nay, almost any.

PRO. [Aside.]

Honest lord,

Thou hast said well; for some of you there present

Are worse than devils.

ALON.

I cannot too much muse,

Such shapes, such gesture, and such sound, expressing,-
Although they want the use of tongue,―a kind

Of excellent dumb discourse.

Praise in departing.b

No matter, since

for we have stomachs.

Not I.

They have left their viands behind;
Will 't please you taste of what is here?
ALON.
GON. Faith, sir, you need not fear. When we were boys,
Who would believe that there were mountaineers

Dew-lapp'd like bulls, whose throats had hanging at 'em
Wallets of flesh? or that there were such men

Whose heads stood in their breasts? which now we find,

(*) First folio, Islands.

A living drollery.] A puppet-show in Shakespeare's time was called a drollery. This, Sebastian says, is one played by living characters.

b Praise in departing.] A proverbial saying, equivalent to "Await the end before you commend your entertainment." So in "The Paradise of Dainty Devises," 1596,—

"A good beginning oft we see, but seldome standing at one stay,

For few do like the meane degree, then praise at parting some men say."

1

Thunder and lightning. Enter ARIEL, like a harpy; claps his wings upon the table, and, with a quaint device, the banquet vanishes.

ARI. You are three men of sin, whom Destiny,

That hath to instrument this lower world

And what is in 't,-the never-surfeited sea
Hath caus'd to belch up you, and on this island
Where man doth not inhabit, you 'mongst men

Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad ;

And even with such-like valour, men hang and drown

Their proper selves. [ALONSO, SEBAST., &c., draw their swords.] You fools! I and my fellows

Are ministers of Fate: the elements,

Of whom your swords are temper'd, may as well
Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd-at stabs
Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish

One dowleb that's in my plume; my fellow ministers
Are like invulnerable. If you could hurt,

Your swords are now too massy for your strengths,
And will not be uplifted. But, remember,—
For that's my business to you,-that you three
From Milan did supplant good Prospero;
Expos'd unto the sea, which hath requit it,
Him and his innocent child: for which foul deed
The powers, delaying, not forgetting, have
Incens'd the seas and shores, yea, all the creatures,
Against your peace. Thee of thy son, Alonso,
They have bereft; and do pronounce, by me,

Each putter-out of five for one-] It was the custom of travellers, when about to make a long voyage, to put out, or invest, a sum of money, upon a guarantee that they should receive at the rate of five for one if they returned. This species of gambling became so much in vogue at one period that adventurers were in the practice of undertaking dangerous journeys solely upon the speculation of what their puttings-out would yield if they got back safe. Of course when the journey ended fatally, the money they had invested went to the party who had engaged to pay the enormous interest on it. So, in Barnaby Riche's "Faults and Nothing but Faults," 1607: "Those whipsters, that, having spent the greatest part of their patrimony in prodigality, will give out the rest of their stocke to be paid two or three for one upon their return from Rome." See also Fynes Moryson's Itinerary," Part I., p. 198, and Taylor, the Water-poet's pamphlet, called "The Scourge of Basenesse: or the Old Lerry, with a new Kicksey, and a new-cum twang, with the old Winsey." The ancient reading is usually altered in modern editions to Each putter-out of one for five," or "Each putter-out on five for one," but no change is called for; Shakespeare and his contemporaries commonly used of for on,

66

"I'd put out moneys of being Mayor."

Dowle-] Feather; or particle of down.

"The Ordinary," Act I. Se. 1.

Ling'ring perdition-worse than any death

Can be at once-shall step by step attend

You and your ways; whose wraths to guard you from,-
Which here, in this most desolate isle, else falls

Upon your heads,-is nothing but heart's sorrow,

And a clear life ensuing.

He vanishes in thunder: then, to soft music, enter the Shapes again, and dance with mocks and mows, and carry out the table.

PRO. [Aside.] Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou
Perform'd, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring:
Of my instruction hast thou nothing 'bated,
In what thou hadst to say: so, with good life,a
And observation strange, my meaner ministers

Their several kinds have done. My high charms work,
And these, mine enemies, are all knit up

In their distractions: they now are in my power;
And in these fits I leave them, while I visit

Young Ferdinand,-whom they suppose is drown'd,—
And his and mine lov'd darling.

[Exit from above.

GON. I' the name of something holy, sir, why stand you
In this strange stare?

ALON.
O, it is monstrous! monstrous!
Methought the billows spoke, and told me of it;
The winds did sing it to me; and the thunder,
That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounc'd
The name of Prosper; it did bass my trespass.
Therefore my son i' the ooze is bedded; and,
I'll seek him deeper than e'er plummet sounded,
And with him there lie mudded.

SEB.

I'll fight their legions o'er!

ANT.

[Exit.

But one fiend at a time,

I'll be thy second.

[Exeunt SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO.

GON. All three of them are desperate; their great guilt,

Like poison given to work a great time after,

Now 'gins to bite the spirits.-I do beseech you,
That are of suppler joints, follow them swiftly,
And hinder them from what this ecstasy

May now provoke them to.

ÅDR.

Follow, I pray you.

[Exeunt.

So, with good life,-] The expression "good life" occurs with equal ambiguity in "Twelfth Night," Act II. Sc. 3, "Would you have a love-song, or a song of good life?"

ACT IV.

SCENE I.-Before Prospero's Cell.

Enter PROSPERO, FERDINAND, and MIRANDA.

PRO. If I have too austerely punish'd you,
Your compensation makes amends; for I
Have given you here a thread" of mine own life,
Or that for which I live; whom once again
I tender to thy hand. All thy vexations
Were but my trials of thy love, and thou
Hast strangely stood the test: here, afore Heaven,
I ratify this my rich gift. O, Ferdinand,
Do not smile at me that I boast her off,

For thou shalt find she will outstrip all praise,
And make it halt behind her!

FER.

Against an oracle.

*

I do believe it,

PRO. Then, as my gift, and thine own acquisition
Worthily purchas'd, take my daughter: but
If thou dost break her virgin-knot before
All sanctimonious ceremonies may
With full and holy rite be minister'd,

No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall
To make this contract grow; but barren hate,
Sour-ey'd disdain, and discord, shall bestrew
The union of your bed with weeds so loathly,
That you shall hate it both: therefore take heed,
As Hymen's lamps shall light you.

FER.

As I hope For quiet days, fair issue, and long life,

With such love as 't is now,—the murkiest den,

The most opportune place, the strong'st suggestion

Our worser Genius can, shall never melt

Mine honour into lust; to take away

The edge of that day's celebration,

When I shall think, or Phœbus' steeds are founder'd,
Or Night kept chain'd below.

PRO.

Fairly spoke:

Sit, then, and talk with her; she is thine own.—
What, Ariel! my industrious servant, Ariel!

(*) Old text, guest.

-a thread of mine own life,-] The folios have "third," a mis-spelling, perhaps, of thred: = thread, which is oftentimes found in old writers.

Enter ARIEL.

ARI. What would my potent master? here I am.
PRO. Thou and thy meaner fellows your last service
Did worthily perform; and I must use you

In such another trick. Go, bring the rabble,a
O'er whom I give thee power, here, to this place:
Incite them to quick motion; for I must
Bestow upon the eyes of this young couple
Some vanity of mine art; it is my promise,
And they expect it from me.

ARI. Before you can say, Come, and Go,

And breathe twice, and cry, So, so;

Do not approach

[Exil.

Well I conceive.

Each one, tripping on his toe,
Will be here with mop and mow.
Do you love me, master? no?
PRO. Dearly, my delicate Ariel.
Till thou dost hear me call.
ARI.
PRO. Look thou be true; do not give dalliance
Too much the rein: the strongest oaths are straw
To the fire i' the blood: be more abstemious,
Or else good night your vow!
FER.

I warrant you, sir;

The white-cold virgin snow upon my heart
Abates the ardour of my liver.

PRO.

Well.

Now come, my Ariel! bring a corollary,b

Rather than want a spirit: appear, and pertly!-
No tongue; all eyes; be silent!

A Masque. Enter IRIS.

IRIS. Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas
Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats, and pease;
Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep,
And flat meads thatch'd with stover, them to keep;
Thy banks with pioned and twilled brims,

Which spongy April at thy hest betrims,

[Soft music.

To make cold nymphs chaste crowns; and thy broom groves,d

The rabble,-] The inferior spirits.

b A corollary,-] An overplus.

c

Thy banks with pioned and twilled brims,-]

According to Henley, “pioned and twilled brims meant brims dug and begrimed.” Hanmer and Steevens contend that the poet had in view the margin of a stream adorned with flowers; while Mr. Collier's aunotator would read, "pioned and tilled," that is, cultivated "brims." We much prefer the interpretation of Hanmer and Steevens to either of the others; but have not thought it desirable to alter the old text.

d - broom groves,-] Hanmer changes this to "brown groves," as does Mr. Collier's annotator; and a more unhappy alteration can hardly be conceived, since it at once